Ron Dearing: Cradle-to-grave learning must become a reality

I cannot recall any government White Paper on higher education being awaited with such a mixture of hope, expectation and apprehension as Charles Clarke's promised publication this month. The universities have an outstanding bid for an extra £10bn of government money over the next three years. In support, they can point to an increasingly dire financial situation. They can also point to some good international performance ratings. But to meet their bid would mean scooping the £12.6bn that Estelle Morris won for the whole of education. No chance. Nevertheless, they are rightly looking for a hefty response. Some are looking for a White Paper contribution to their financial problems through a rise in tuition fees, whether across the board or through institutions being free to fix their own levels.

Students naturally see things differently, and have lobbied strongly on the issue of fees. Those from poor homes will be expecting a response to the earbashing that Ministers got during the last election on maintenance grants. These headline issues do matter, but there are others that matter as least as much, and that, in the long run, will have a profound effect on the structure and effectiveness of higher education. The debate on these has yet to take place.

Margaret Hodge gave notice of them when she addressed the universities in the autumn. She argued for greater differences in the roles of universities, a stronger role for the market in determining research investment and in where students choose to go. She recognised that such policies might lead to "a very different configuration of universities". Big stuff.

In the move to greater differentiation in the roles of universities, we shall hear a great deal about research. But I want to hear as much about the teaching role of universities. Undergraduates go to university to learn, not to research. While I see world-class university research and its application to products and services as central to our long-term economic well-being, with increases in tuition fees on the agenda, the student has every right to expect that the teaching and management of learning on offer gets equal priority.

So, I want to see what the Government has in mind to foster quality in teaching and support for students in learning. And, if the Government is to succeed in its welcome commitment to increasing participation by students from "non-traditional homes", it must find ways to increase and improve the present financial support provided to universities – and to FE colleges offering higher-education courses – for students who come with marginal qualifications.

With the Government's announcement last month that we need to work until we drop, the practice of lifelong learning has to become a reality if we are to continue to be employable. Holding down a job and studying is no picnic. First-class learning on tap, when you want it, wherever you want it, at work or at home, at university or college, has to become standard provision. Learning partnerships between companies and universities must become the norm. More difficult, but essential to lifelong learning, we need a national system of credit accumulation and transfer, so the learning can continue uninterrupted when people move with their jobs. None of this is the stuff of headlines. But we need to go for it.

Turning to the vexed subject of tuition fees, in 1997 I chaired the committee that recommended that graduates contribute 25 per cent of the cost of teaching them when they began earning, with payments spread over a period of years at rates related to income. Higher education is a privilege that is not open to all citizens, and those going to university get a better deal from the state than those who are less educationally gifted. It seems equitable that they should contribute when they benefit, and, if need be, more than now. But if the Government is going to ask for a greater contribution, it must be on an income-contingent basis after graduation, and if the associated problems can be solved, payment through the tax system may be the best route. That approach would rightly underline that the contribution is not from parents but from graduates earning money, and it moves away from a debt culture. But going back to my committee's report, as part of the package, let us see a restoration of maintenance grants for students from the poorest homes.

Lord Dearing has been an adviser to successive governments on education issues

education@independent.co.uk